Article

Name: How exotic is the “immediacy of experience principle” in Pirahã?

Authors: A. V. Kravchenko

Irkutsk State University, Irkutsk, Russian Federation

In the section Linguistics

Abstract: Daniel Everett’s book about the language and culture of Pirahã, an Indian tribe in the Amazonia (previously discussed in The Siberian Journal of Philology), has caused a lively reaction in the global linguistic community, questioning the basic tenets of Chomsky’s theory. At the same time, an intriguing feature of this language, the “immediacy of perception principle” described by Everett, seems to have remained beyond the focus of attention. Starting with Maturana’s epistemic maxim “everything said is said by an observer to another observer,” it will be shown that, counter to Everett’s claim, this principle is not a unique feature of Pirahã and is manifested in European languages as well, such as Russian and English, for example, in particular, in the system of aspectual oppositions of the verb. It may be hypothesized that the “immediacy of experience principle” is a language universal stemming from the biological function of language.

Keywords: perception, observer, visual field, perceptual groundedness of grammatical categories, verbal aspect, biological function of language

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